The Cost of Silence

We can’t just sit back and wait for feedback to be offered, particularly when we’re in a leadership role. If we want feedback to take root in the culture, we need to explicitly ask for it.

–Ed Batista

The role of employee voice in organizations – whether in the form of work-related complaints, participating in decision making, contributing new ideas, or providing feedback – has been topic of discussion and debate for over 200 years. The industrial revolution fueled the drive towards greater employee voice via organized labor. The information era precipitated the rise of Organizational Behavior as a discipline, and a greater focus on encouraging employees at all levels to contribute toward generating ideas, improving the effectiveness of teams and processes, and fostering well-being. Despite that encouragement, research by Gallup shows that only 30% of U.S. workers “strongly agree” that at work their opinions (voice) make a difference. Far too many employees choose silence.

Leaders must weave the expression of candid, healthy voice into the fabric of an organization, and have the courage to defend it through their words and actions.

Receiving far less attention is why some leaders also choose silence. Silence isn’t merely the absence of voice – it is also ‘speaking silently’: the reiteration of group-thought and corporate mantras rather than contributing and seeking candid, authentic views. While research on the topic is scarce – a Google Scholar search on the subject ‘leader silence’ produces 79 mostly unrelated results – the circumstantial evidence of the cost of leader silence is persuasive.

When Leaders Choose Silence

It would be the unusual leader who would admit that she isn’t interested in the thoughts and ideas of the people on her team or the broader organization. Fewer still would likely admit to choosing silence or to speaking silently, yet examples are all too common:

Leaders failing to confront toxic colleagues. This can lead to a toleration of harsh language, biases (conscious and subconscious), bullying, withholding information, and resistance to feedback. More significantly, it corrodes the fundamental norms and values that are essential to performance and well-being. Uber is perhaps the best-known recent example, but there is no lack of similar stories. The #MeToo movement has highlighted examples across every industry.

Leaders tolerating peer incompetence. Ignoring performance gaps results in others having to do the work and a lowering of quality standards. Despite being nearly 50-years old the bestselling book, The Peter Principle, provides examples of the practices that lead to incompetence infecting organizations.

A central reason for a lack of authentic leader-voice within an organization is a culture that fosters a climate of silence.

Leader toxicity, poor decision making, and incompetence often amplify unintended negative consequences across an entire organization. Despite the consequences, a quick scan of the Wall Street Journal or similar source of business news quickly shows that the behaviors persist. A central reason for a lack of authentic leader-voice within an organization is a culture that fosters a climate of silence. Whether created intentionally or inadvertently, this environment emerges when there is a lack of commitment to constructive feedback among leaders within an organization. More specifically, feedback that identifies gaps between what leaders expect of their superiors and peers, and what they experience. Left unaddressed, those experience-expectation gaps become corrosive. Leaders experience an increase in the perceived risk of speaking out and a greater fear of damaging key relationships. Then, by opting to choose silence or speak silently, leaders risk becoming a contagion, diminishing authentic voice across the organization.

Walk the Talk

Leaders are told over and over the importance and benefits of encouraging candid, healthy employee voice. They are told that they should surround themselves with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree without fear of retaliation. When they don’t hold themselves to the same standard, they abdicate an essential leadership responsibility. An absence of an authentic voice from leaders can be dangerous for an organization, leading to reduced psychological safety, widespread loss of trust, the deterioration of key relationships, and ultimately disengagement. The impact on performance and well-being carries a heavy price for both employees and organizations. Leaders must weave the expression of candid, healthy voice into the fabric of an organization, and have the courage to defend it through their words and actions.

Dr. Hurley, the co-founder of Xmetryx, has deep expertise in team science and team leader development, and his passion is inspiring leaders to craft extraordinary teams. Jeb’s career journey began on new product innovation teams in Europe and Asia. This led to GM / VP and CEO roles at companies ranging from Fortune 500 to VC backed startups, as well as co-founding 3 software companies. After nearly 30 years in VP, GM, and CEO roles, Dr. Hurley spent five years walking in the shoes of today's team leaders while earning his doctorate in leadership. He experienced what was and wasn't working on the front lines and combined his research with insights from the best minds in the field of team science. His TRM workshop is based upon his groundbreaking research into human motivation, employee engagement, and team performance. Jeb regularly speaks and writes about team leadership and improving employee wellbeing and is the author of Team Relationship Management: The Art of Crafting Extraordinary Teams, as well as The ONE Habit: The Ultimate Guide to Increasing Engagement & Building Highly-Effective Teams. Jeb has published over 50 articles on team leadership and is a Columnist and Featured Contributor for BIZCATALYST 360°. See Jeb's full bio, and connect with him, on LinkedIn.

2 COMMENTS

Our first reaction is to see the disagreement as negative, disadvantageous or unpleasant. Instead, expressing one’s disagreement (if properly managed) often leads to improvements, productive gains and unexpected solutions. Renewal, innovation, passion and vitality arise in controversy, contradiction and exchange. Expressing divergence means going against the current, against the status quo. It can also mean demanding that your ideas are respected. At other times, it serves to assert one’s personality, defend oneself, not be easy targets and not let others trample on us. Not to express any dissent, emotion, being overly diplomatic, conciliatory, compliant, show to be afraid, you risk being misunderstood, ignored and someone could take advantage of this complacency, especially in the world of work. But one must also avoid expressing one’s disapproval too abruptly, polemically, aggressively, without explanations or alternatives, because they can compromise professional relationships.

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